RE: Why are you (still) a Christian?
September 14, 2023 at 5:53 am
(This post was last modified: September 14, 2023 at 6:23 am by Bucky Ball.)
(September 14, 2023 at 3:51 am)Data Wrote:(September 14, 2023 at 12:10 am)Bucky Ball Wrote: Sorry, sir, but no.
In Hebrew culture there are many "divine beings" .... when the Witch of Endor conjures the shade of Samuel for Saul in Kings, (which was forbidden ... to disturb a dead shade), she is asked what she sees ... only a witch could see a shade, and she tells Saul that she sees a "divine being rising up". The Hebrew pantheon had any number of "divine beings", but they were not gods. These divine beings lived in heaven with Yahweh, and not in Sheol where all other dead shades lived. In recent scholarship, there are a number of PhD theses written about the "heavenly host" who are all "divine beings" but they are certainly not gods, nor do any of them equate to the status of Yahweh.
You seem to be referencing Jewish tradition which I'm not conversant in. I was referencing the Bible. So, in the Bible a divine being is a god, from the Hebrew el and variations thereof (Elohim, etc.). Anything or anyone mighty/venerated. The spirit, or shade, summoned by the witch of Endor was a deceptive, demonic spirit being. Nothing lives in sheol, sheol is the grave, corresponding to the Greek hades.
No. I'm talking about the Jews who wrote the Bible. And the beliefs of the Jews in the Bible. The story above is IN the Bible. It's in Kings, just like I said.
The Jews (who wrote the Bible), .. including the story above, thought the "Heavenly Host" was comprised of many divine beings, but they were not gods.
You're also wrong about the shade of Samuel. Shades were not deceptive or demonic.
They thought all dead souls (shades) lived in Sheol. Sheol was the grave, and dead souls were in a "dormant" state.
Obviously you are not conversant with ancient Jewish tradition, or the Bible.
"The concept of a divine assembly (or council) is attested in the archaic Sumerian, Akkadian, Old Babylonian, Ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Canaanite, Israelite, Celtic, Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman and Nordic pantheons. Ancient Egyptian literature reveals the existence of a "synod of the gods".
"Sheol (/ˈʃiː. oʊl, -əl/ SHEE-ohl, -uhl; Hebrew: שְׁאוֹל Šəʾōl, Tiberian: Šŏʾōl) in the Hebrew Bible is a place of still darkness which lies after death. Although not well defined in the Tanakh, Sheol in this view was a subterranean underworld where the souls of the dead went after the body died."
All the dead were thought to go to Sheol. The righteous and the unrighteous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheol#External_links
Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble. - Joseph Campbell
Militant Atheist Commie Evolutionist
Militant Atheist Commie Evolutionist